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A workshop for sluts and goblins who wanna get a little messy, in the name of making dances!
November 27, 28, & 29, 2024
Gyrokinesis: 10:15am – 11:30am
Stripper Gollum: 12:30pm – 3:30pm
*Drop-ins welcome on November 27 & 28. No drop-ins Friday November 29 for Stripper Gollum due to the cumulative nature of the practice.
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Winchester Street Theatre
Studio C
80 Winchester St, Toronto, ON M4X 1B2
Stripper Gollum serves as a mutable figure grappling with their feelings of emptiness, longings and the longings others have of them – in order to develop a compassionate humour towards both inner and outer hauntings.
Certified in Gyrokinesis, Be will oscillate between warm-ups in a “day on, day off” approach calling upon an upbeat work-out — drawing from physical therapy, callisthenics and qigong — before diving into state-based improvisations. We will turn this research into a personal choreography before collectively expanding upon it as a group phrase that will deepen throughout the week. Together we will explore socialized notions of sexiness in dialogue with the “hungry ghost.“ In eastern philosophy the hungry ghost represents the insatiable hunger alive in people often associated with craving and addiction. It is represented most popularly by the spirit character “no face” in the Hayao Miyazaki movie Spirited Away and is a focal point in Gabor Maté’s book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. The hungry ghost can also be found in the Gollum/Sméagul character of J.R.R. Tolkein’s novel, The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings.
This research asks: Is it possible that we may need to (be gentler with or) move away from fixing “broken” parts of ourselves and instead embrace the inherent complexity of our many selves? If being whole doesn’t mean being consistent or predictable, can we embrace the complexity and diversity of our inner worlds, and recognize that everything is in a state of flux!?
Stripping has roots in many dancing cultures including the ballet, as an exchange between dancer and patron. It is a form of sex work intertwined with complex power dynamics, stigma, secrecy, self-employment, unstable employment, underground economy, the purchasing of pleasure, charm industry and so much more. It’s important to note that this form of indoor sex work sits on a different part of the safety spectrum than outdoor and survival sex work – even if there may be overlap between the two.
Participants are encouraged to work at the “resilient edge of resistance” – a term named by Chester Mainard, which was formed in the context of erotic massage to describe a touch that isn’t too hard but also isn’t too soft. How can we apply this term as a way of exploring movement?
“I’m not sure about you, but I imagine it in a way that balances pushing one’s limits while taking care in the social context of a workshop. Take what you need and leave the rest.” – Be Heintzman Hope